


Some Good Food, Some Bad Laughs, and Some Nice Friends

by Kizzy



Series: The Anomaly [1]
Category: Undertale
Genre: F/M, First Date, Fluff, Grillby cameo, Post-Pacifist Route, Romance, Sans is a giant nerd, puns, so many puns
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 10:13:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5452946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kizzy/pseuds/Kizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sans and Toriel are settling into their new lives on the surface. Now that they have a chance to spend some time together, what will they do? Go to Grillby's? No, that's a terrible idea, why would...oh. Oh, they've gone to Grillby's. Well okay. Fine. They go to Grillby's.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Some Good Food, Some Bad Laughs, and Some Nice Friends

For a skeleton who was always sleeping, Sans looked tired as he slumped into the armchair in front of the television. He shucked off his slippers and propped his feet up on the ottoman before him. With a sigh, he tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling. Papyrus hadn’t come home yet. The apartment was quiet. Sans absorbed the silence, letting his thoughts settle as his eye sockets slowly sagged shut.

A knocking sound came from his pocket. He startled in his seat, one eye flying open. At first, he glanced toward the door, then realized where it had come from. He chuckled and pulled out his phone, opening the text from Toriel.

“Greetings Sans! ]:) I hope that I have not texted you while you are working! You have so many jobs that I am never certain of your schedule. If you are no longer at work, or once you get off of work, I hope that you text me back!”

Sans chuckled. She still hadn’t quite cottoned onto the idea of short texts. He quickly sent her a message back.

“hey tori. i'm off work and boy am i bone tired.”

“L-O-L! Well, I hope they do not work you to the bone too often! But, joking aside, I do have something that I wanted to ask you, Sans.”

“good one t. well go ahead and ask. don't make my anticipation drag-on, lady.”

“Ha ha ha! Okay. Well, here it goes. I was wondering if you would join me for dinner this evening? Or another evening, if that is better for you.”

Sans hesitated before replying. Ever since they had come to the surface, he had been able to visit Toriel fairly often, usually with Papyrus. Well, Papyrus would usually disappear to play with Frisk as soon as they started busting out the puns. But these were usually casual visits. She never needed to invite him before. What kind of dinner was she planning? He tapped his bony finger against the side of his phone for a moment, pondering how to respond.

“sure, i can take a break from spaghetti tonight. should i bring papyrus?”

He stuffed his hand into the pocket of his hoodie to keep from tapping his fingers on the armrest. She was typing a response. Why had he bothered to ask? Of course she just wanted him and Papyrus to come over. Like normal. She just wanted to make sure that he wasn’t too tired to come over tonight. Her next text appeared.

“Actually, I was hoping that Papyrus could stay home. And that we could go out together.”

He nearly dropped the phone. Was she…? He scratched the back of his skull, feeling a blush spreading through his cheeks. He had been wanting to spend more time with her… _alone_ time…

“that sounds nice. i've been wanting to go on a date—”

He deleted the text. Too upfront. Right? He hadn’t been in the dating game since…well, back before he and Papyrus had moved to Snowdin. And Toriel was just…wow. Poised, funny, kind…He’d never forgive himself if he messed up his chance with her. And here was that chance, staring up at him from his phone. At least, if he was reading it right. He hitched a grin onto his face and replied.

“sounds great tori! is grillby’s ok?”

After sending the text, he wanted to throw the phone across the room. Grillby’s? Really? Why was that always his go-to place? Why would he bring a date there? Why would he bring a _queen_ there?! He pressed a fist into his browbone. He may as well start reheating the spaghetti now. His phone made another knocking sound. He didn’t want to look at it, but forced himself to open the text.

“Oh, well Grillby’s would be delicious! I think. I have not gotten a chance to eat there yet. Do you mind meeting me there at eight o’clock tonight?”

He groaned and slid down into the armchair. Great, now she would just be disappointed. It wasn’t that Grillby’s wasn’t a great place. The atmosphere was just…more appropriate for a lonely guy looking to brighten his night with a few drinks and companionship from some barflies. Maybe he should suggest somewhere else? Or maybe she would be fine with it anyway. He thought about the evenings they had spent sitting at the island in her kitchen, chatting about their lives and swapping jokes. The way her smile warmed her entire face when she had finally stopped worrying about the papers she needed to grade. Maybe that’s what she needed tonight. Just a couple hours in a bar with…a good friend? He hissed through his teeth. Well, it would be a start at least. He picked up his phone again.

“cool. you’ll know me when you see me. i'll be the one patellan the barkeep all about his hot date.”

His fingers clacked against the back of his phone. She responded.

“Ha ha ha! I cannot wait. You could say I am fired up!”

Sans grinned and sank into the armchair. He still had enough time for a quick nap, right?

*

His bedroom in Snowdin was as messy as ever when he opened his eyes. Wait…Snowdin? No, they had moved to the surface months ago. He scrambled to the window. Smoke poured out of the town’s chimneys, swirling upward and gathering far, far above them on the cavernous ceiling.

“No.” Sans smacked his head against the windowpane. “Not again.”

He heard the familiar thunking steps of Papyrus as he got ready in the next room. Stretching his nonexistent muscles. Sending a morning text to Undyne to confirm their cooking lesson. Dreaming of the day when he would catch a human. All. Over. Again. He squeezed his eyes shut, and the graph of the timelines came to his mind. Jumping left and right, starting and stopping. And ending. He glanced back at his bed, thinking how nice it would be to crawl back in until the anomaly…did whatever it wanted to do this time. But Papyrus was already pounding at his door.

“I’ll be out in a bit bro.” He called out. The pounding continued. He shuffled toward the door, forcing his mouth into its typical grin. But when he opened the door, it wasn’t Papyrus on the other side. It was Frisk. They were holding a knife. From the corner of his eye, Sans saw the window stretch into an arched shape, its light shifting to a golden glow. Frisk’s mouth twisted upward into a smile, and Sans felt his eyes sliding out of focus. For a moment, he could see two Frisks—except one wasn’t Frisk. A rosy-cheeked child grinned as they slid into the right side of his vision. Frisk, as unexpressive as ever, wavered to his left. He blinked, and they came together into one child again. One malicious child with gleaming teeth, raising a knife high above their head.

Sans startled awake. He grabbed at the front of his shirt. No gash. He was in his apartment. On the surface. It had just been another one of those…dreams? His hand was still shaking as he grabbed his phone. 7:50. Welp, time to go to Grillby’s. He’d have to take a shortcut.

*

Ever since monsters had begun transitioning to the surface lifestyle, Grillby’s had been one of the few businesses to become successful with both humans and monsters. As one of the only places that served magical food, many monsters dropped by on their way home from work, and many curious humans stopped in for the experience. Once the healing properties of magical food were discovered, he had found a whole new market for his food. Humans still trusted their hospitals more than monsters’ magic, but there were still plenty of customers who were willing to try healing their cuts and scrapes with a greasy burger.

Grillby himself had adjusted to the change in type and volume of clientele with his usual stoic resilience. As Sans walked through the door, he was serving drinks to a group of college-age humans. Sans glanced around the room, waving to the monsters and humans who had become regulars there. No Toriel. Probably still on her way. Hopefully. He slid into his usual seat at the bar, waving down Grillby, who was touching his finger to the tops of the humans’ drinks. As the drinks burst into flames, the humans cheered raucously. Grillby sidled down the bar and nodded to Sans, crackling with a greeting. The skeleton jerked his head over to the college kids as they chattered excitedly.

“Pretty easy to impress, huh?”

Grillby shrugged in response, his flames searing into a smile. He glanced at the watch on his wrist and back to Sans. Sans scratched the back of his head.

“Ah, right. Yeah, I’m a little later than usual. Got caught up in my nap, I guess.” His grin didn’t seem to convince the bartender, who continued staring forward. Sans’ eyes fell to the countertop. He was tapping his fingers across it in a steady tattoo. “Oh, and, well, I might be meeting someone here. For a date.” Grillby continued to stare at him. “Um, Toriel as a matter of fact. I guess she’ll be here before too long.” He glanced back at the door as he spoke, so he didn’t see Grillby’s flames gutter for a moment. When he turned back, Grillby was busying himself by pulling out a ketchup bottle and sliding it across the bar. Sans chuckled. “Ah, you know what I like, Grillby.” He pulled off the cap and raised it like a champagne glass. “Cheers, pal.”

He tipped the ketchup back into his mouth, letting it ooze between his teeth before fizzing as his body absorbed it. Just as he thunked the empty bottle back onto the counter, the bell over the door tinkled. He felt as though his soul had dropped through his ribcage and onto the floor. A glance over his shoulder confirmed it—Toriel was ducking under the doorframe and looking around the bar’s interior in bemusement. Sans’ grin widened a little as he watched her gracefully straighten to her full height. He raised his hand and waved her over as he slipped off his stool. Her eyes brightened as she caught sight of him. He strolled toward her, his head tilted up to see her.

“Hey there, Tori. Welcome to Grillby’s, I guess.”

“Hello Sans! Thank you for meeting me tonight.” She smiled warmly down to him and reached out a hand to rest on his shoulder. She gave him a light squeeze that made something flutter in his chest.

“Heh. It’s never a problem. I guess you just needed to get out of the house?” He motioned toward a nearby booth with a slight bow of the head. Toriel shrugged and slipped carefully into her seat.

“Well…yes, I suppose. I love children, you know, but when you are surrounded by them at work, and then come home to take care of one…well, you need a night out now and then.” She fidgeted with the napkin dispenser on the table, offering a somewhat sheepish smile to Sans as he sat across from her. “And…I wanted to spend it with you.” He chuckled and leaned back into the booth, crossing his arms behind his head.

“Glad to hear it. I’m…happy I came.” He found himself biting back a pun. They smiled to one another over the table for a moment before Toriel opened her menu, lowering her snout to survey its laminated pages.

“So, what do you usually get, Sans?”

“Ah, me?” He glanced over to Grillby, who was tossing out his abandoned ketchup bottle. “Usually just a burger or fries. If I really need something that sticks to my ribs, I might go for the meatloaf.”

“Oh. I guess…a burger?” She tapped a picture on the menu and glanced up to Sans, her eyebrows scrunched together worriedly. Sans looked at the picture she was indicating—it was a grilled cheese sandwich.

“Oh, um, that’s…actually…well, this is a burger, T.” He reached across the table to point to the correct picture. Toriel chuckled slightly and laid her warm hand over his.

“Oh, right. There is still…so much that I am not familiar with.” She smiled, but her eyebrows were still drawn together. “I suppose that I…Ruins-ed my palate by shutting myself away for so long.” Sans chuckled a little uneasily.

“Heh, it’s okay. It takes a while to get used to a new life. Isn’t that what you help your students with every day?”

What was left of Toriel’s smile faltered for a moment. Still, she quickly nodded in agreement. “Oh, yes…I do tell the students—especially the monster students—that it will simply take time and effort.” She slid her hand off of Sans’ and glanced toward the approaching waiter. He wanted to slide under the table and crawl away. What did he say wrong? He was replaying their conversation in his head when he became aware of the waiter staring at him impatiently with all six of his glowing red eyes.

“Oh, uh. I’ll have what she’s having.” He propped his chin on his hand and traced a circle on the tabletop. Once the waiter left, he chanced a glance up at Toriel. She was watching him, the corners of her mouth turned down.

“I am sorry, Sans. I think that I have worried you.” She laced her fingers together and propped her chin on them, her eyes still trained on the skeleton. “I guess that I have been having problems at work, and they…oh, I apologize. Let’s not think of this at the moment. I wanted to have fun with you tonight.” She offered him a warm smile. He couldn’t help but return it.

“Yeah, let’s just relax tonight.” To punctuate his statement, Sans propped his slippered feet up on the table, his arms folding behind his head once more. “Hey, you know, I thought about asking if you wanted to go to a pancake place, but then I remembered that everyone there just gives me the crepes!”

Toriel giggled, ducking her snout beneath her hands. She glanced up, noticing something over the top of the booth. Her eyes slid back to meet Sans’, a smirk still brightening her face. “Oh, the waiter is coming. I do not think he will be happy with your feet on the table. If you don’t put them down, he may give you the boot!”

They were both laughing as the waiter actually did arrive at the table with their orders. He rolled his many eyes and slid their plates in front of them. Sans gave the server a wink. “Don’t worry, pal. We’ll try not to _bug_ you too much tonight.” Toriel tried to stifle her laughter by burying her face in her hands, but it didn’t work very well. The waiter clacked his pincers as he stomped away. Sans shrugged and picked up his burger. “He’s not a very good waiter. Didn’t even notice that there’s no salt at this table. Must be awful at math.”

“Hmmph?” Toriel gave him a puzzled look, her mouth full of food. Sans winked to her.

“Oh, well he can’t be very good at multiplication if he doesn’t know his tables.” Toriel nearly choked on her burger.

As they ate their meal, their conversation flowed much more easily. They laced puns into chatter about the latest MTT programming, Frisk’s antics, and the recent news about the human government wanting to take over operations of the Core.

“I imagine they will be awfully puzzled when it comes to navigating the place,” Toriel said, smirking. “But I would far rather that humans worked together with monsters than a wholesale takeover.”

“Well, y’know, human engineering has a lot to catch up on when it comes to using magic. They’ll need monsters to explain a lot of the stuff that keep the Core running. Some of it is…actually probably incomprehensible to them. Like Wispling’s Theory of Arcano-Phosphorescence. That theory pretty much needs the innate knowledge of magic use that only monsters can obtain. I mean, the underpinning concepts alone—what? Did I get something stuck in my teeth?”

Toriel blushed a little and shook her head. She had been staring at him as though he had sprouted a few new phalanges out of his forehead. “No, Sans…I just…I’ve never heard you speak of these things! And certainly not in such a…um…” She shrugged and smiled in embarrassment. “Such an…articulate way?”

“Oh…right.” Sans felt a flush of magic creeping through his cheekbones. “I guess you could say that deep down, I’m a giant science fiction nerd.” He winked. “Especially when it’s not fiction.”

Toriel beamed down at him for a moment before a soft, tinkling melody began to play from her phone. She glanced down at it and put a hand to her mouth.

“Oh, no, it’s already that late? I promised Frisk’s sitter I would be home soon.”

“Ah, don’t worry, Tori. I know a shortcut.” He jumped to his feet and took a step toward the door, then paused to hold out a hand to Toriel. She, too, stood up and wrapped her hand around his, letting him lead her out of the restaurant. When the waiter tried to flag them down, pincers clacking frantically, Sans tossed a casual “Put it on my tab!” over his shoulder. The door swung shut, and they were standing outside in the crisp evening air. Sans glanced up to Toriel, and his grin seemed a little worried. “Just, uh, hang on real tight for a sec, okay?”

Toriel was just opening her mouth to speak when the world around her did something strange. It crumpled around her into an infinite number of accordion pleats, then sprang back into place so quickly that she felt as though she had blinked and found herself standing in front of her house. She gasped and felt her knees buckle slightly. Sans held tightly to her hand, letting her regain her balance. She stared down at him as though he’d grown a whole new arm out of his forehead.

“S-Sans! What the hell was that?”

“Yeah, that was a fast shortcut, huh?” He didn’t quite meet her eyes. “I keep a few tricks up my sleeve, you know. Always ready for a prank on the go.”

“Quite the…prank you’ve pulled off.” Toriel blinked up at her house, still adjusting to her sudden shift through reality. A chilly wind rustled the scrubby bushes around them, sending the crickets hidden in them into a frenzy of song. Above them, the autumn sky sparkled with the few stars visible so close to the city. Her door was a few feet in front of them, its dark green paint still peeling like when she bought the place. “I…um, well, thank you, Sans.” She grinned down to him. “Will you ever stop surprising me?”

“Heh, you’ll just have to keep hanging around me to find out.” His eyes glowed up to her, and she could detect the faint radiance of a blush above his smile. With a sudden impulse, Toriel bent down, pulling Sans closer by the hand. She pressed her nose against his, and the heat of her magic poured into his bones. Although the sudden movement startled him for a moment, Sans quickly relaxed and nuzzled back against her. He sighed happily, closing his eyes. His magic mixed with hers and seeped through her own skin. This mingled magic left the pair feeling as though they were being drenched by a warm summer rain.

After a few moments, they pulled apart, the magic fizzling in the air around them. They could only grin to one another for a moment. Sans was the first to speak.

“That, uh…that was something else.” Toriel held her hand to her face in a poor attempt to cover her blush.

“Yes…I hope I wasn’t too—”

“No, no! You were great. I mean. Fine. You’re…fine. More than fine. You’re…heh.” He broke into a chuckle, scuffing his slipper on the cracked concrete walkway. “I’m really glad you asked me to dinner with you tonight. I hope we can do it again. Like, on a regular basis.”

“Oh, yes!” She nodded excitedly. “I’d love to.” She laughed and rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. “I’m so glad that I let Frisk talk me into going out tonight.” Sans’ head tilted to the side. “Oh, I mean—I wanted to go out with you. But I needed some convincing, I guess. Frisk was…rather insistent.” She giggled. “It was pretty cute. They’re quite the little matchmaker right now. They said things were getting boring, and this would be fun. Wh-what? What’s the matter?”

Sans’ smile had fallen a little. The kid had needed some good food, some bad laughs, and some nice friends to get them up to the surface, but…was that not enough anymore? Or maybe this is just what kids do? Toriel didn’t seem too fazed by it. He hitched his smile back up and shrugged. “Ah, nothing. I guess I’ll just have to give the kid a talking-to about meddling in other peoples’ romantic lives.”

“Oh, there is no need, Sans. But thank you.” She glanced back at the door. “Now, I really need to go in. Good night, Sans.” She flashed him a final smile before stepping inside. He waved after her. Once the door shut, he let his breath hiss through his teeth. She was probably right. Nothing to worry about. Just a weird kid being weird. As he passed the window to Frisk’s room, Sans glanced toward it. Just as he did, the curtains twitched back into place. He stopped in his tracks. There were the unmistakable creaks of someone scrambling back into bed. Had…the kid been watching them? He scratched the back of his head and frowned. Well, at least it seemed entertaining to them. For now. His shoulders sagged as he stepped forward, folding the world in around him.


End file.
